'BLACKA' ELLISAmina Blackwood Meeks
, Contributor
ALMOST ANYONE who works in the theatre will tell you that it is among the lowest paying of all the performing arts.
Item: A friend of mine in the business reported to me recently that an advertising company wanted a certain deejay, in the business, to voice a jingle of less than 60 seconds duration. A fee of $80,000 was quoted. No problem. Except that the deejay wanted to use his own musicians and for that he quoted a separate fee. Big problem of the there's-no-you-without-me variety, for in that business, so says one says all is the one order. So the
advertising company decided to go for a straight voice, as they say, and called in my friend. Hell pop fe dem pay har $25,000. She was to discover the $80,000 offer much later or, knowing she, more hell wudda pop.
Item: Have you checked the monetary awards associated with the annual festival competitions of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission recently? I think you might find that the last bottom skemps a money share up fe dose who are designated "winners" of the literary competitions. Look like when yu write poem or story or play it use up a less expensive part of de brain dan if yu write song or cook or such. De whole society seem to tink so.
These two examples raise many issues which need to be addressed about the valuing of talent in the performing arts and consequently how that talent is remunerated. And I know all the arguments about performer must pay dem dues and seniority and so on. I don't think I am buying, however. I don't hear anyone proposing that first time members of Parliament must get a skemps of the salaries of the veterans, or that dem mus prove demselves before they are paid something decent.
Well, I am proposing that now. Ah want justice! Come Video Me! I don't hear any proposals that deejays must be around long enough to prove that they have stickability in order to earn the big dues dem calling up. I was rather amused when another friend of mine related that only two weeks ago she overheard her 15-year-old son and some of his friends talking about 'old hits' and they managed to go as far back as the Wanga Gut hit by Tiger. She say she did waan gi de hole a dem a ole hit. But that didn't stop anyone of the deejays listed by the young boys in question to call up and receive big bucks, sometimes just for 'appearances'.
There are those singers and deejays who oftentimes meck it be known far and wide, loud and clear, how much they are paid for any particular gig. In so doing they provide a standard, a bench-mark by which other performers in their genre might measure what it is that they are worth and what conditions they should be demanding in their contracts. Accordingly, the fees in the industry reach new highs every year and deejays and singers are facilitated to keep pace with the cost of living. I know there are other considerations, like house and clothes and cars as status symbols but those are not the issues here today.
The issue is yu haffe tun dentist and dig it out a odder theatre people teeth how much dem get fe what and under what conditions dem work. One obvious consequence of this is that people in the theatre get a stipend, for that is not pay, of likkle an nutten, an de skemps has barely moved since Whoppy fall out wid Phillup.
Or else yu have two likkle fren an unnu decide fe consult one anedda before unnu call any fee fe any particular job. The situation is probably worse among emcees. One job can range from $20,000 to $70,000 depending on who is the emcee. Same job, same venue, same deliverables, just a different voice behind the microphone.
Quite apart from the fact that contractors happy to know that you don't know what you are worth so that they can get the 'bess for less', it is probably a meanness of spirit that keep stipends in the theatre depressed and depressing. Too many people want the satisfaction of knowing that, at least in the stipend department, they are valued more highly than someone else, even if their years in the business put little significant distance between the quality of their performance and that of the new kid on the block who barely get de 'end' an never a glimpse of de 'stip-'
We may not be ready for anything as collective as an artiste guild in this world where the individual reigns supreme or at least labours under that illusion, mistaking it for love oh it's a labour of love, they tell you. But a little information-sharing would benefit everybody, and help yu to love it more even if stage and studio producers chose to maintain the vintage-newcomer divide.
The bottom figure must move and consequently the stars who wish to remain shining alone at the top have an enhanced leverage for 'topping up'.
The same would apply to related conditions of service such as whether meals are provided, and what is considered a meal, during extended rehearsals. What kind of a wardrobe allowance should emcees and other presenters be entitled to as a matter of course for assignments in which how they look is a critical aspect of the presentation, sometimes factoring highly into why they were selected for the job in the first place.
PRODUCTION COST
And yes, it will all probably push the cost of production up and the public might be asked to pay a little more to sit and have a laugh with Oliver (den nuh mus Samuels me mean) or ponder with Basil as in Dawkins. So? This is the real world in which the laws of the economics, that nobody teck de time fe see if it meck sense fe we, operate and overnight, according to Peter as in Winston Hubert McIntosh, "gas gone up, light bill gone up, phone bill gone up and there has got to be a solution to this confusion". Then again, the public need never be asked to pay one cent more for the fact that performers are well paid and treated even better.
Just ask Blacka and Bello, Joan Andrea Hutchinson and Paleface Hendricks what they discovered about de business when they decided to produce Laugh Jamaica themselves. Dem pay all dem bills, pay demself better than any director/producer has ever paid them an plus pay demself for whatever contribution they had made to the production, meaning to say dem get paid as actor/writer/director/producer/marketing manager and the whole crew, back, front and centre stage. And some did still leave over.
The society must come to terms with what it means to be on stage. If it is only an appreciation for the fact that $800 is not much to pay an actor for the 90 minutes or so we see them on stage, furthermore for the great number of weeks of rehearsals and sleepless nights and sacrifice of family and personal life which preparation often involves. And 60 seconds of radio commercial is 60 seconds.
The value of the product to the consumer does not change dependent on whether is an actress or a deejay who voice the commercial. The change in attitude will come a little quicker and might be a little less painful if it begins with a heightened spirit of generosity within the fraternity. We can't help another fellow traveller without also helping ourselves. "The hand that gives the rose still holds the fragrance".
